Get up and go

“Maybe you don’t feel like it, but you need to do it anyway.” That’s what the little voice inside my head kept repeating this morning. It’s Sunday. I was still in my pajamas with a cat on my lap as the clock ticked ever closer to 10 am. I’m not going to lie, there are (many) days that I ignore that particular voice in my head, or that I pretend I don’t understand what it’s saying – like it’s speaking a foreign language – Mandarin or Yoruba, or maybe Swedish. But today it spoke in plain English and I actually listened to what it was saying instead of telling it where to go. I threw on some clothes and brushed my hair and teeth – you know, the minimum amount of personal grooming required to step out my front door.

Last night, we got a lot of rain. I love the damp after a storm when hundreds of tiny drops clutch to the bare branches like diamond pendants and the cool air smells clean and woodsy. Although the sky was still filled with clouds, there were bits of blue patched in for good measure and cheer. And every time the sun broke through, it bounced off the golden leaves and surrounded me with a warm glow. It was the perfect morning to take a long walk with my dogs.

It’s been a while since I last posted about my fur family – let me give you the canine update. Barnaby is no longer able to keep up with Watson. He tires quickly and it’s very slow going uphill. I feel your pain, Barn – #gettingoldsucks. He needs short walks at his own pace. Recently, I’ve taken to walking the dogs one after the other instead of at the same time. Today, already impressed with myself for listening to the savvy, smart voice in my head, I recognized that if I started by walking Barnaby, I would lose the motivation to continue with the longer walk both Watson and I needed. So I did the second brilliant thing of the day – I walked Watson first. Forty-five minutes later, I opened my front door and found Barnaby looking up at me, eager and ready to go. What choice did I have? I clipped on his leash and turned around for walk #2. Our fifteen minute walk gave me the chance to cool down at a slower pace and it tuckered him out enough that he curled up in his bed and dreamed of the old days when he used to run circles around the house, just for fun.

Now I’m smiling inside. I did something nice for myself. I did something nice for these dogs that I love. I feel calm and my brain is in order. There are no intrusive thoughts popping out and catching me unaware, no anger simmering below the surface, no sadness making me want to crawl back into bed and close out the world. There’s just me at peace. I’m content to spend the rest of the day doing whatever it is I decide to do. Let me tell you, that is power.

When you have PTSD, your emotions are all over the place. Fear, sadness, and anger have been the major players for me. For others, it’s common for shame and guilt to also come into play. I’m thankful that I’ve only got 3 of the 5 to worry about because even now, after so much healing, I can still get stuck in a negative emotional loop. For a long time, the positive emotions like joy, pride, and a sense of contentment were pretty much no-shows. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I was never happy, content, or proud of an accomplishment. But during my chaos-on-steroids, they were rare and fleeting emotions. I still found small things to divert my attention for a moment or two and provide hope that my normal, rather happy self was hidden away somewhere deep inside, waiting to be freed from its short leash on some date far in the future.

As I’ve trudged along, the balance has begun to shift to something more like what I remember before the crime. I’m feeling more like myself.

Each of us has our own emotional equilibrium. It’s that setting where we feel good, like our world is as it should be. Trauma throws our emotions out of whack. It makes us question whether the world will ever be right again. It can be a struggle to get back to our normal set point. But as I’ve started making choices that help my positive emotions thrive, the dark clouds above my head have parted and the sunlight has returned. That’s not to say it’s been easy. Even six months after completing Prolonged Exposure Therapy, regulating my emotions takes work. On any given day, they can be all over the place – and that’s if I’m paying attention. When I lose my focus for a few days in a row, those dark clouds move right back in and the deluge begins all over again.

The good news is that the storms are more predictable than they were just a few months ago and they don’t last as long. I’ve developed some tools and tricks that help me stay on track. I know that if I keep working at it, my emotional balance will return to normal – at least most of the time. And that, my friends, is the goal.

Some days, you just have to get up and go. Today, I did.

Today was a good day.

When you have PTSD, it can be difficult to do the things that you know you need to do. If you’re having trouble setting and reaching goals, behavioral activation may be the answer. It can help you craft small steps to take you where you want to go. As you probably know by now, I co-authored Behavioral Activation for PTSD: A Workbook for Men. While men are clearly the target of the book, the practice works for anyone. Do you have questions? Yay! Feel free to drop them in my comment section. I will get back to you. I do have a full-time job so if it seems like it’s taking me a while to respond, ping me. I don’t always remember to check my spam folder and I don’t want to miss a single comment or question.

For more information about emotions and how they impact us, check out my co-author, Dr. Lisa Campbell’s, blog post: Emotions: Just the Basics.